Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

In all the talk between changes in visuals in all the versions of ST:TMP, no one has mentioned the change in sound design on the DC. That was more disturbing to me than the new effects. I would listen to Trek recordings before video was readily available, and know every part of the film from that. I miss hearing "negative response at helm" from the computer. There are changes to the computer voice all through the film. Even the comm and transporter sounds are changed. For that reason alone I prefer the theatrical cut.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Additionally, Eagle Eye, Kung Fu Panda, Bee Movie and Shrek the Third (all Paramount discs, with DreamWorks) had gray discs. That was a small experiment on my own collection. I still don't know what the color disc has to do with anything about this conversation, though.

My comment about TDB and its people stands. I have more faith in what they say on any subject than anonymous posters dealing in second hand information...

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

That new "red alert" sound effect in the director's cut IS pretty lame.
I'm resigned to the fact that these movies are going to be released more than once, as long as this particular set really is the theatrical versions (I'm looking at you, Trek VI.)

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

jason, the color disc shows you paramount does not care about its movies or HD or any of this nonsense. if they cheap out on the disc art design, they cheap out on film negatives, they cheap out everything until digital content creation prices have come down to make them rethink their strategy. that is, they are going to wait til competing studios have innovated to a point where the cost to do what they need to do for a fine disc-release for a film will justify their costs for profit.

yesh i fraking know they are a business. but still, it angers me that MONEY is all they think about. how can u treat a franchise that have made paramount BILLIONS of dollars from all the profits that they have already generated like this? this is a horrendous disrespect to these films that are really a part of american history now due to the things they reference, like the challenger, yosemite, san francisco, etc.

aaanyways. i just hope they do a good job, but i know for a fact they won't.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

YiFeng-

Your comments about the lack of disc art is your opinion and it could be very true.

I don't have that many Blu Ray discs myself. I have some Warners and Fox and they do have art. And I have a few from Paramount. When I look at that and think about it, I think there is another reason for the lack of art.

If you look at it from a corporate design perspective, it could have been the edict of the head of the home video group for a consistent visual design language across the board for all DVD/Blu Ray discs. This makes sense as all Paramount discs will look the same. I am speaking from my own design experience in the design field. Look at the consistent way some companies like to have their packaging and products have a specific and predictable look.

Of course this is a theory on my part. If they were really consistent, they could have done a basic template for the outer case art design too.

I personally don't have an issue with no disc art. I only have a problem if I can't see what the disc title is.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Can you do me a huge favor? While you're in the business of predicting what is and is not going to happen? Which stocks are going to shoot up in the next year so I can buy up lots of shares and retire at the age of 30?

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I've seen some rumors on various dvd news sites that Trek films 1-6 are coming to blu ray this year. A forum thread I read reported that 1-6 films will be out the week the new Trek movie opens. May 5 for the release date of the blu rays? The forum post also believed that The Original Series season 1 would be coming that day as well. Is there any truth to the tv series release?

I'm sure the films will be out in April or May, with the new film out May 8.

Also, is it known who did the restoration on the Star Trek films this time? Was Lowry involved for finishing the films at some point?

Paramount has done some great releases of old films at times. I really want them to do Star Trek right. I'm not happy about the handling of TMP as I feel the DC is the definitive version Robert Wise was unable to release in 1979. I'm sure he would be unpleased to see the theatrical being released again if he was still with us.

I know many wanted the theatrical release version as well and I do respect that opinion as well.

Hopefully the quality of restoration on ALL of the films is done very well. Films like Once Upon A Time In The West, To Catch A Thief SE and Sunset Boulevard were done very well.

At any rate if they don't get them right, they can try again in 2-3 years right? They seem to reissue the Trek films quite a bit!

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Its Paramount...
so we know nothing so far.
Ugh!

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Right. We've had absolutely no confirmation of anything, everything said here has been strictly rumor and speculation. Of course it would make sense if they would release something around the time of the new movie, but at this point we really have no idea.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I really wouldn't look as a lack of fancy disc art being an indicator as to the quality of the overall package. I mean, really, does it matter? "Iron Man" had a rather unspectacular set of disc labels, but the content was first rate. Perhaps they decided the money was better spent on content than printing.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Precisely; in these days of economic hardship, if Paramount is willing to devote its more limited dollars where they matter (video/audio quality, worthwhile supplements) by cutting a few niceties where they really don't (I mean, come on, disc art--why do you really need that?), I'm not about to sweat it.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Agreed. Use the savings of removing the disc art to finish the Director's Cut of The Motion Picture.

: )

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I was with you intially--it's hard to fairly reassess what we've become used to, but the more you think about it, the sound design of TMP aligns with nothing we'd heard previous or since. The DC, while perhaps less sonically dynamic, is more in alignment with established TREK lore in several respects (the computer doesn't shout out about helm issues, Sulu does; why oh why would the computer have a male voice when the ENTERPRISE is a lady?, be honest--if you had to work with that red alert klaxon every day, you'd be a nervous wreck, etc.).

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

sure, short sell everything since all stox will continue to drop til november 5th, 2010, then it'll start climbing



my point about the art is more about paramount's attitude toward the treatment of the franchise.

the reason why the titles from paramount u guys have listed are good is because they are:
a) preserved well when it comes to older films.
or
b) brand new films like iron man, which will obviously look and sound good

but i have yet to see a blade runner, bond series, etc. from paramount on blu-ray. it just doesn't exist yet. i know paramount has a remastering facility, but they might as well not have one. it's totally useless if they aren't willing to spend the effort to start respecting film. they make a half-hearted effort to do something but it just doesn't work because either u don't do anything and simply dump it on BD, which is essentially what paramount is gonna do with these trek films OR u go 'all the way' and do a full treatment to totally respect film history. i say they're spending enough just so they look decently dumped on BD and nothing more. look at the clancy films, patrio, clear present danger, hunt for red october. same ideas.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I don't think any facts would clear up or change JediFonger's hardcore position.

What would be interesting is if an insider who works at Paramount or with Paramount could chime in here. Do the studios have people that monitor the HTF. I recall there is a thread for talking to the studios. Or perhaps Mr. Robert Harris could enlighten us? He did feel that the Paramount/Hitchcock film, "To Catch a Thief" was a top notch transfer, IIRC. But I've never seen Mr. Harris in a Star Trek thread!

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

...which is why I'm a big fan of getting this original version out there. I remember the first time I saw "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"; it was a VHS rental of the "special longer version", and while it had some scenes not in the theatrical, it wasn't missing anything from the theatrical and retained the original sound design and effects work. The quality and design of the effects, along with the unusual soundscape, made this one heck of an oddity in the Star Trek canon for me; at the time I think I had only seen the second and sixth films and some episodes of TOS and TNG.

There was probably no way this was ever going to be a great movie--they never, ever had a finished script, and that's usually a problem. You had the producer (Roddenberry) and the writer (Harold Livingston) fighting about the script and rewriting each other, often without even letting the other one know. Robert Wise is down on the set trying to direct this film that had no ending, and the main cast is nitpicking what lines they will and won't say and throwing in their own story ideas. Across town the special effects people are trying to do effects for a film that, again, had no script. And, of course, all of this was put together for the first time basically en route to the premiere. Leonard Nimoy recalled in an interview that he hadn't even seen the film, that none of the cast had, during it's premiere, and that as the house lights went down, he sat there and silently prayed to no one in particular, "Please don't suck."

(content edited for internal stupidity)

I guess the point I'm making is, while the DC might be the definitive director's cut of the film, I don't think there is or can ever be one definitive cut of the film, period. When I see the DC, parts of it feel more in line with the later films, but parts of it just don't seem right to me...they neither feel appropriate to the film as originally made in 1979, and they don't seem to fit the standards of the later films... Because there's no one real person who was the creative force behind this film, it's an ideal candidate for multiple cuts being available.

But as originally released, or as released on video in that "special longer version" in the early 80s, the film had an otherworldly, alien feeling to it. It felt huge, it felt different, it felt like they were up against something the likes that they had never encountered before, on an unprecedented scale, and in spite of those things or maybe because of it, I always liked the film even though I knew it wasn't exactly a masterpiece. While seeing the new digital matte paintings of San Francisco or the Vulcan skyline might be "technically" correct in the Star Trek universe, those "corrections" end up bringing me further away from the film rather than making it easier for me to get into it. (If they didn't look like TNG-quality-level effects, maybe I'd feel differently, maybe not.)

Anyway, this bizarre, unusual, at times "incorrect" imagining of the Star Trek universe has always been fascinating to me, and I welcome a release of a version on disc that doesn't have the new elements that were created for the DC.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I'm told that when the Ilia probe first appears in the sonic shower, Robert Wise asked something to the effect of "Why do I care about the temperature?". That combined with the male computer voice talking over the first mention of "V'ger" led to the removal of the computer voice. So yes, Wise was very much a part of it.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Interesting point of view and perspective on the original version, Josh.

I saw the film on December 7th, 1979. I can agree the film felt very alien in ways. The characters just weren't there, or were very dark versions of themselves. For me, the experience was in ways a shock. New costumes, new ship, and a plot that was in contrast to what the general movie audiences were either expecting or hoping for given the recent Star Wars and it's very energetic pacing!

In terms of the DC, the remastering team as I understand it were yes, fans. They proposed to Wise that they could help him finish the film to his vision. I think the group were earnest and definitely worked to Wise's goals, not theirs. They used original storyboards and design concept artwork from 1978. In the audio commentary track, Wise does say things about certain shots where you see this or that and that it was a place holder and the DC allowed him to put the shots he wanted to have in the right places. (You could argue they convinced Wise to do something, but I don't believe that)

I think I agree to a point with an earlier poster that the new shot of V'Ger, where you see the whole ship sort of takes it's power away. But I don't mind it, you can finally see the whole thing and get a sense of scale.

I really like the DC, it tightens the film up and realizes the original intent. I don't see anything there that's out of date in terms of adding something from the year 2000 to a film made in 1979.

The special Longer Version only adds scenes that weren't needed and used it to fill a 3 hour time slot for ABC to air. The space walk wasn't going to work out, so the shot of Shatner going out the airlock and seeing the unfinished set was cool to see, but wasn't needed. And the added shots of Sulu, Illia and Uhura talking technobabble don't really add anything. Though the one shot of Sulu clumsily explaining the console to Illia was interesting, it only dumbs his character down. This is all interesting to see now. But I am pretty happy with the DC.

You make an interesting point that Wise may not have been in total control, that Roddenberry had his vision given it was his baby. I don't know the answer there, and Wise's version on the DC may very well be just the result of him getting the film as good as it could be given all those inputs during production.

It's still a big film. To me it's the only TOS film to feel epic. Deforest Kelley once spoke that the film will almost feel like 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1977 or 78. I think he was right, it had that aspiration.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Chalk me up as one who prefers the DC, for the various reasons described above and one more: the tortured history of this film is well documented, including the fact that TMP had to be out on its release date for the holiday season of 1979, no matter what. It had been prebooked into thousands of theatres and there would be no opportunity to delay it to polish certain details. Total Movie did a lengthy article when the DVD came out in which it described what was sent to the lab for duplication as a "wet assemblage of footage." As such, TMP is distinguishable from the Star Wars SEs and various other DCs; the movie truly was unfinished, and the DC gave Wise and Co. an opportunity to revisit the film and give it that final polish. I agree with Nelson's assessment of the finished product. Frankly, TMP in its 1979 form is a difficult movie to watch because it lacks the polish of a finished film: I saw it for the first time in 1980 at the drive-in, and even then (@ 9 yrs old), I knew something was lacking.

As for the BD release, I think they should go back and simply increase the resolution on the opticals that were prepared specifically for the SD release. It shouldn't be a difficult process, or a lengthy one @ that. If Paramount thinks it's appropriate to release the theatrical cut as well, that's fine with me, but the Extended version is a mess, with unfinished scenes and opticals; the most appropriate way to address the extended version is the way they did on the SD release, by making those scenes available as supplements.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

StarTrek.com has this mp3 commentary track with David C. Fein, Michael Matessino and Daren Dochterman talking about Star Trek: The Motion Picture and "The Director's Edition". Perhaps that will answer some of the questions asked here.

STARTREK.COM*:*Article

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

It's a good MP3, I synched it up while watching Star Trek The Motion Picture.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I've heard that commentary as well, and I think it's good. I wasn't suggesting that Wise had no control over the DC; what I was saying was, there's no way to know for a fact exactly which things were suggested by him, and exactly which things were merely "approved" by him or were changed and wasn't noticed. Maybe every single change was imagined by him and discussed at length; I'm not saying that didn't happen, I'm saying we don't know. But that was mostly irrelevant to my larger point, which was and remains:

Star Trek: The Motion Picture never had a single, strong voice in charge of the production, and is truly an assembly of different creative voices and ideas.

What I'm saying is, I don't dispute that the DC is Wise's idea for how to finish the film; I'm saying that for a film that had these kinds of production problems where everyone was trying to make it into something different, that there can be no possible "finished" version. Because, really, "finished" according to who? Robert Wise most likely would not have had final cut on the picture; Gene Roddenberry was frequently overruled in his suggestions by the studio; Harold Livingston was frequently fired by Roddenberry only to be hired back by Paramount the same day, and that happened multiple times; the actors themselves insisted on adding things to the script, and helped work out the ending when there really wasn't one. It was meant to be a film, and then a TV show pilot, and then a film again. So many people touched it along the way that I don't think it's possible to "finish" this film today, in part because you'll never get all of those people in a room together, and if all of them more or less disagreed about how the thing should work, who's idea is valid and who's isn't? Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek, but Robert Wise directed the film; if they disagreed over something, who's right, who's wrong, which vision is "correct"? I don't think it's possible to answer those questions here.

I'm not saying that the DC isn't a valid release or anything; I'm saying that there's nothing about the DC that suggests to me that it should replace all previous versions of the film. By releasing only the DC on DVD, for the longest time that was the only version of the film in print, so like it or not, if you wanted to see it, that's how it was. I'm just glad that they're releasing the original version. With the original coming out on BD, and the DC already on DVD, it'll be easier for viewers to decide which version of the film they want to watch and which one they like better. And I'm glad that they're apparently putting out the original version before putting out the DC. But that's just me.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Sorry to post this, but it seemed apropos for this thread.

Khan has died:

My Way News - Ricardo Montalban dies at 88

I will be watching Khan tonight in his honor.

Brian

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Wow, that is sad news. He was much more then Khan or Mr. Roarke.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Ricardo Montalban and Patrick McGoohan in the same day? Oof.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

RIP, Mr. Montalban.

You will be sorely missed but never forgotten.

Dave

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

It's sad indeed. I wonder if it's too late to produce some kind of tribute for the STII Blu-Ray disc.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I didn't think it dumbed down Sulu's character but rather helped flesh out Illia's character as she was Deltan and supposedly a VERY sexual species giving off powerful pheramones (sp?). That's why she mentions her oath of celibacy. Sulu is just reacting to those pheramones.

I, too, saw the The Motion Picture when it was released and was wowed at the theater. I liked the movie alot and appreciated the more literary approach to the science fiction story being told. I found it a parrellel to the literary science ficiton episodes from the series (certainly literary compared to the likes of Lost In Space, a type that was prevalent at the time) hence I didn't think the film alien at all but a natural progression. For me it is the best Star Trek movie, the most epic, and the one that stands the test of time in regards to story and film making.

That said, I am in the prefer the DC version camp for the reasons Nelson states and hope at some point it gets reworked for a Blu Ray release.

Sad news about Ricardo, may he rest easy in copius amounts of Corinthian leather.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

I'm going to respectfully disagree with you on this one. Wise had enough clout in the industry at this point to demand a producer credit on TMP, even though he'd had nothing to do with pre-production and other matters that a producer typically deals with. To suggest that he didn't have final cut, when he was brought on to the project to replace a TV director and give the film the prestige Paramount felt it deserved, is a little disingenuous.

As far as Ricardo Montalban's passing goes, my sympathy to his family and friends, although I imagine they view his passing as a somewhat positive thing: his health was in steady decline in the last few years, and a botched back surgery had left him wheelchair-bound.

Re: Star Trek films on Blu-Ray... what we know so far

Stephen is right. Robert Wise did have final cut on TMP. Its simply that there was no time for a final cut. Wise states in the commentary that it's the only film he has ever made that there was no time for a sneak preview from which more changes would have been made.

As to the sound mix, it was very much last second and not at all what Wise had in mind, but there was simply no time to change anything. The first pass at the sound effects that they were given by the sound effects editors had to suffice. Jerry Goldsmith was actually recording music tracks up to 5 days before the Washington D.C. premiere.

As to Wise not being familiar with the show, its just not true. By all accounts he was a fan of the show in its original airings and never missed an episode. In addition he screened some episodes on 16mm film before starting the project. If you listen to the commentary you'll find that he has in depth knowledge of the original episodes and amazing recall of names, dates, and places from the TMP shoot. I don't know that I would remember that kind of detail some 30 years later.

Doug